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Downhill slope
Sofia Echo, 08.03.2009
The latest statistics showed a decline in the number of foreign visitors to Bulgaria, but gloomy forecasts for Bulgaria’s ski resorts might have been a touch exaggerated. Even without any official figures in yet, news of bankruptcies has been conspicuous by its absence.
That is not to say that all is well with Bulgaria’s tourism sector, but ski resorts appear to have weathered the first squall of the credit crunch without major casualties.
The dry numbers are that the number of foreign visitors to Bulgaria was down 10 per cent in January 2009, compared to the same month of 2008, with only the numbers of Germans and Romanians visiting Bulgaria rising, by 0.2 and 1.7 per cent, respectively, according to data from Bulgaria’s statistics board. The number of Britons visiting Bulgaria was down 10 per cent.
About 42 per cent of the 266 700 foreigners who came to Bulgaria declared tourism as their purpose of visit, but the National Statistical Institute did not provide any comparable figure for January 2008.
"The fact that we have only a 10 per cent decline in the number of tourists, which is a fairly small figure compared with other countries, means that the tourism industry found the right price levels. Whether we will manage the same in summer, is up to the industry," Kroushkova said.
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